2022 Annual Meeting
Matlab Based Assessment of the Growth Dynamics of Microbial Cells in PDMS Nanocultures
Understanding microbial interaction is essential to determine key beneficial functions among the myriad of microorganisms making up the human microbiome. However, the lack of tools for examining such dynamics limits the ability to isolate live biotherapeutics for improving human performance and health. Owing to advances in microfluidics, we develop a novel culture system using semipermeable poly(dimethylsiloxane) microcapsules (the nanocultures) to isolate, sequester, and recapitulate microbiome dynamics with the hope of predicting microbial pathogenicity. In this study, we encapsulate Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1) and uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) to monitor cell dynamics at various growth stages and develop a Matlab-based approach for assessing the swimming behavior and growth pattern of the disease-causing strains both in isolated cultures and when cultured together. We track the pathogens for 18 hours in the presence of physico-chemical and biological insults to assess changes in velocity profile and mean squared-displacement. Encapsulating the bacterial species together we monitor movement changes that may be caused by interactions between the species and stress. Because each species moves in a unique way, we anticipate building a machine learning algorithm as a recognition platform for key motility patterns, which will advance the design of synthetic communities of human-derived biotherapeutics.